The Origin Of That Iconic Squeaky Sample K-Pop Producers Can’t Get Enough Of

No matter what group you stan, odds are you’ve heard the sound of something squeaking in the background of a song before. Here are a few examples of songs with that sound in them, to set the stage before diving into the origin of the sound.

It shows up in EXO‘s title track “Tempo”…

…NCT 127‘s b-side “Baby Don’t Like It”…

…SHINee‘s “Prism”…

…BTS‘s “Boy Meets Evil” intro from their 2016 Wings album…

…”Between Us” by LABOUM…

and “I’m Not Sorry” by DEAN!

That’s just a fraction of the songs that this iconic squeaking sample appears in. It’s obvious producers love using this sound in their songs — but where did they get it from? To find the original use of this sound, we’d have to look at none other than American rapper and producer Lil Jon! Back in 2004, Lil Jon produced a song titled “Some Cut” for the hip hop group Trillville.

While making the song, Lil Jon and his collaborator Craig Love realized the chair Lil Jon was sitting in was squeaking. They decided to take a microphone and record Lil Jon rocking in the chair to the beat of the song!

Once you notice this sample, you’ll begin finding it in a ton of popular Korean songs. It’s a truly iconic moment in music history that continues to have a global impact today! And at the center of it all is just a “cheap a**, Office Depot, old a** chair,” as Lil Jon described it.